Cast of Characters

I am a writer who just happens to love family trees. As the self proclaimed Family Historian and Writer in Residence at my house, I blog to others about family history writing. When I first began this journey, everyone was bored silly with my "family tree stuff." Once I started writing the stories down, everyone willingly joined in. Now the whole family pretty much participates! Imagine that ! Follow along, and you can gain a little family appreciation for all your hard nosed genealogical research while learning a little something about the craft of writing too.

Category: Photographs

I originally wrote this post several years ago while the “Mom blog” was in its infancy. But after watching a good friend pridefully chose “just the right spot” to display her new, official and authentic family crest– complete with expensive frame and mat–freshly purchased while visiting a Theme-Park-Mega-Land…I thought we could all use a refresher. We Americans just don’t “get” the whole Heraldry and Flying the Family Colors thing. But boy, we sure want to participate! Here’s the real scoop, along with a bit of my own shame showing 😉 I’m not sure, but I believe it was PT Barnum who said “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

What I am sure of is: I am one of those suckers.

The other day I was clearing out a drawer and ran across a family crest certificate that my husband and I had purchased many years ago. Can you hear the Merry-go-Round music yet? It came from a very “proper” looking shop. I believe that it was even spelled “shoppe” ~ a spelling meant to further endorse the authenticity of fake stuff. But we were young and silly and newly married. So we scraped together the $35.00 ( a pretty Royal sum for us 30+ years ago) and bought a “fully researched and authenticated, heirloom quality” piece of paper with our last name slightly misspelled on it.

Wow. How cool is That ?

What I have learned since ( ironically for free via library books) is that we were totally duped. A crest is only “good” for the original “owner.” A father may have a certain design, but it does not pass down verbatim to his children. When important families married, as was generally the plan, their crests were merged to create a new one for the identity of the newlyweds.

Maybe there was an Earl of Momenhousen who bore the crest in my drawer a bazillion years ago. However we, the current-day Momenhousen family, have no claim to it.

Heck at this point, I don’t even know what happened to the receipt ! I do have an excuse though…I am an American. Almost all of us are about one inch away from obsession with “the Old Country.” Additionally, we are also generally convinced there is a Demi-Czar, a Baron or at least a Bergermeister in our family pedigree somewhere.

Therefore, it stands to reason that we(meaning the immediate “us”) must have claim to a heraldic shield, a family crest, or something that verifies we are from a stock above serfdom. Thanks Mr Barnum, you have given a name to this madness~

Sucker.

The real truth is that Heraldic Design is pretty much about Art. If you are Canadian, you may claim a crest for your lineage if you wish to go through a long and arduous process. For better or for worse,if you are looking for something cool to put up on the wall, its time to do some doodling. Although I did some intensive research on the topic and found a few favorite books that I think are very good for being technically correct, I just recommend the use of an artsy relative.

Simply by Googling “Heraldry” or” Heraldic Design”, or” Colors in Heraldry”you can save yourself some time and money. If you are looking for good books on the subject (and you can persevere for a few months to get through one) I would recommend one of these three. And please note, the third one is not an opening chapter, it is the title of the book:

1. A Guide to Heraldry by Ottfried Neubecker

2. Concise Encyclopedia of Heraldry by Guy Cadogan Rothery

3. The Manuel of Heraldry a Concise Description of the Several Terms Used and Containing a Dictionary of Every Designation in the Science with 350 Illustrations by Sir Francis James Grant

If these all sound too scary, have a sit down with your clan and start brainstorming what it means to be a “Dipfenhoffper” or “Smith.” Think up some words,symbols, and colors to use to represent You. Maybe then craft a family logo~for your ” house”. Remember, siblings should be allowed to represent the same ancestry with their own selection of colors, symbolism and mottoes. Consider using a string of words that spell out your last name as a motto like the poems kids are so fond of writing out of their names .

Example (bad one, really bad one):

Bravery In The Hood Masked At Night (Bithman)

In my post titled “Managing the Help(ers)” I talked a little bit about dividing this task up among different factions of the family. It’s a great way to get everyone started with helping without driving you nuts. And, as a bonus, if you can get everyone to create their own crest, then the cover design for their copy of the finished project will already be done.

It’s also as authentic as the “Heraldry” you buy in a glitzy little shopor from one of the online retailers. This is my fabulous furboy, posing as the Lord of a fictitious family who lives out their on-screen lives in a private home rented annually by their production crew.

I’d rather have this photo any day over one printed out with an ink-jet from a tourist trap! If you’d like your baby, or yourself, transformed into Napoleon or Marie Antoinette (before that whole unfortunate beheading thing) get in touch with Julie, you can have royalty “your way” as the great American (Burger) King says 😉

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Do you follow any good Writing blogs? You should if you want to “Up” your writing skills. And, really, who doesn’t want to become a better, faster, stronger, Six Million Dollar Man-type writer?

I like to mix things up a bit to learn new stuff from various points of view–yes including “Point of View” how-to’s. So today I’m sharing my list of favs…read on and then click through, you may learn something cool!

I follow Kristin Lamb’s blog and love that she offers long, interesting, relevant posts infrequently. In her latest post she discusses exactly why I feel this way. Why? Because if I’m following a blogger and they jam up my Reader or my Inbox with post after post…I’ll unsubscribe or un-follow. I can’t read everything, nor do I want to, so I try to choose only the best. I need a little “me” time to get my stuff done…not to just sit around and read about how I could be doing better…instead of doing it.Also, if you’re constantly trying to cyber-shame me into buying what you’re peddling (a book, coaching, editing, blah blah blah) I don’t really feel the need to be badgered.

That’s what my kids are for…and they are all certifiable ninja-level black belts when it comes to irritating Mom.

Another one I like quite a bit (maybe because there are little themes daily and I can pick and choose which ones I’m in the mood to look at) is Ryan Lanz’s blog “A Writer’s Path.” I especially enjoy his Under the Microscope series where he does an intensive critique of a writer’s volunteered sample. Lots of good stuff comes up on that weekly feature. He’s also talented at rooting out good little nuggets in the inspirational quotes field!

Rachelle Gardner usually has something interesting to say when she says it. Another infrequent blogger, her site is a treasure trove of info. Use the search box and you’ll find she’s written about nearly any topic you want some info on when it comes to the “P” word. Yes, publishing. She’s a literary agent and quite generous with her knowledge and guidance.

Also, some of her followers leave great comments. Be prepared though, a handful seem to enjoy using the comment box as a sort of Agent Audition space…a little cheeky if you ask me 😉

The last two, are certainly not the least. I always enjoy what Sue Bahr has to say on her blog as she takes us all along questioning the universe, shaking the pudding out of lazy muses and writing really, really good YA stories (and allowing us to peek over her shoulder as she does it).

And I am overjoyed and amazed to have found the easy-to-understand tutorials and tips put up by David Pasillas on iPhone Photographer. I don’t have an iPhone–I’m an Android person, but so much of the stuff crosses over, I’ve learned oodles about taking pix with my phone for my own family history writing AND my blog.

By the way…No one on this list knew this post was coming. I just wanted to share some of my very favs with all of you. You are all so generous in sharing with me 🙂

Happy Easter / Passover

Oh! And Please feel free to share a favorite or two of your own in the comments below…I’m always looking for something good to read / learn/ obsess over 🙂

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Image of Alabama and Market street stands circa 1912. Families who had “truck gardens” came here to sell their wares

This is the perfect photo–the one I’ve waited on for many years–to help me tell one of the most heart wrenching stories in our family lore~

When one branch of my family arrived in Indianapolis, they took up the trade of “truck farming.” Truck farming meant generally anything you could grow or produce on a bit of land, and then take into the city to sell. Depending on one’s farming skills, acreage, connections–and time of year, one could buy or sell about anything from a stall along the street.

The work was unceasing for these families. I would imagine that getting to Market Street and being able to stand back and take a breath seeing your stall ready for trading must have felt like a day off. The rest of the week was spent tending gardens and animals, preparing for market, the chores of family and daily living of course.

Until very recently, I never had a real photo of what the Truck Farm Market might look like. Then, by a fluke, I ran into the kindness of Darron Chadwick of the Chadwick Studios who lent me this image. When he posted the photo above to a “remember when” type of local webpage, I knew immediately what I was looking at pure gold for my storytelling.

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Grandma Marie and the Old Mare

When I was enormously pregnant with our second child, there were some some scary moments. I remember my own grandmother, Gramcracker, looking at me as if she were watching someone else in those days. She visited more often than usual–as if she wanted to keep an extra close eye on me during that pregnancy. My husband and I had never told anyone about the near miscarriage. We didn’t want anyone else worrying.

One day in late July on the driveway as she was in her car preparing to leave, she rolled down the window to say goodbye. But instead of “goodbye” she said the oddest thing to me.

“You know, we’ve been worried about you.

You look so much like my Great Grandmother Marie. ”

I dutifully lied, assuring her that I was fine, the baby was fine…insisting that everyone and everything was in fact “fine.”

Now, would you like to hear something a little eerie about what she said to me?

When Gramcracker said “we’ve been worried” she wasn’t speaking of her and my uncle who was her chauffeur and live-in caretaker.

Nor was she referring to conversations she’d had lately with other family members…well…not living ones.

Gramcracker was very “in-touch” as they say.

I guess I wasn’t creeped-out, because she had half raised me and I was quite accustomed to hearing such talk–I completely believed in it. Gramcracker could always see things deep beneath a surface that most folks never knew existed.

I went back into the air conditioned house, curled up on the sofa and thought to myself–

“Well crap, now she knows this pregnancy is a fragile one, I really didn’t want to worry her.”

I never gave another thought to the second thing she’d said to me–about her Great Grandmother, Marie.

Of course I was not surprised that I looked like Grandma Marie! I looked like all the women on that side of the family.

What I didn’t account for was that special way Gramcracker saw things, most all things, in a way different from most people.

Once Babykins was delivered, and both she and I were pronounced healthy, Gramcracker came to visit. She wanted to express her reasoning for gratitude and general feeling of relief that I’d “made it.” She very gentley unfolded the story of Grandma Marie with me as I listened, holding my perfect baby in my arms.

To this day, I wonder if what she told me about Grandma Marie accounts for my life-long tendency to panic if I feel too cold…

On Christmas Eve in 1904, Grandma Marie and Grandpa Paul were in the city with their oldest boys working at the Saturday Truck market. It was a busy day. Many vendors had purchased crates of oranges fresh off the trains coming up from the Mexican farmlands. Oranges were a favorite treat in a wealthy child’s Christmas Stocking. Business was good for everyone the day before Christmas. Even the bitter cold hadn’t slowed the sales.

Grandma and Grandpa Paul’s younger children were home at their small farm on the fringe edge of the county. Under the care of an older sister Lizzy, the children were very busy with chores and tending the house. Late December weather is generally cruel in the Midwest. Since this year was unusually so, the children busily kept the stove stoked and frequently checked the water troughs in the barn to be sure they hadn’t frozen solid.

Around noon-time at the Market, Grandma Marie began feeling ill and looking pale. A small woman, but a hard worker, she was nearing the due date of their 8th child. While carrying this baby she seemed to get tired quicker than she had with previous pregnancies. Grandpa Paul told her to take the wagon and their reliable old mare home early. That way she could get out of the bitter cold and help Lizzy watch over the little ones. Grandpa and the sons would walk home or hitch a ride with some neighbors.

With everything arranged for the boys, her husband, and any unsold goods to get home safely, Marie finally agreed to leave early. She set off alone on the short five mile trip towards home. As she rode along the rutted and frozen stretch of the bumpy Old National Road (Route 40), she began feeling the familiar pains of labor. The intensity and quick on-set let her know there wasn’t much time. Knowing that the baby’s birth was imminent, she dropped the reigns and climbed into the back of the open wagon. She had little choice, but no worries about making it home. The horse was indeed an old and reliable mare who always found her way to the barn.

Marie didn’t make it back to the farm. She gave birth in the moving wagon to a tiny girl and instinctively tucked her under her clothes next to her warm skin; sheltering her baby from the cold.

When Lizzy and the young ones heard the mare’s familiar clip-clop coming up the frozen barn drive they were delighted the family had come home early. The children set the kettle on the wood stove and began heating up water for coffee and gathering bread and jam to tide the others over until dinner could be prepared.

After a few minutes of excitement, the children were puzzled that no one had come inside. When they peered out the back window, all they saw was the old mare standing patiently before the closed door of the barn. Her head bobbed up and down as she waited to be let in and unhitched from the empty looking wagon. There was no one else, only the driverless horse and wagon. After a few moments of trying to understand what was happening, Lizzy bundled up against the cold and approached the barn lot to investigate.

What the poor teen found was her mother, covered in blood, dead, in the back of the buckboard. On closer inspection she found the nearly frozen baby girl clinging to life on her mother’s chest. Lizzy called to the other children to run across the big field to get the neighbors. By the time the children returned with help, the baby had died too.

I sat there dumbstruck as I listened to my own Grandmother tell this story. I knew how Marie had died without hearing a medical explanation. Marie had suffered a placenta previa–the same condition that had threatened my own recent pregnancy. My Great, Great Grandmother had bled to death in that wagon–long before her body froze. She never had a chance.

Gramcracker didn’t have to tell me. I knew what had happened. The answer danced in the air, just as it had danced around me as Gramcracker watched over me through the long fretful weeks of that pregnancy.

And that was when I understood what she truly meant as she told me at the car window that I “looked” so much like her Great Grandma Marie.

Grandma Marie ~A woman who had died seven years before dear Gramcracker was born.

The ground stayed rock hard the rest of that long winter. The temperatures and northerly winds kept everything frozen solid past Easter. The baby and Marie were covered in blankets and laid in a small shed near the barn until the earth finally give way to shovels in April. Then they were buried together, one wrapped tight against the other forever– the baby never named. Grandpa Paul never forgave himself for letting Marie out of his sight that day. He died about a year and a half later. Reportedly, he drank himself to death.

Now I’m the one who is so grateful, finally I got to write this story down…

*again, my heartfelt thanks to Darron Chadwick for allowing me to share this photo and thus finally feel I could share this story exactly as it needed to be told <3, what a true kindness from a stranger!

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My Ancestors, and perhaps many millions more of your own, are actively being held for ransom. Donating to a local Historical Society seems like a kind and generous act when you have finished scanning and scrutinizing photos and papers. BUT. Lately, I’ve been learning a tough lesson about handing over the “goods” to a big omnipotent archive.

Well of course I’ll elaborate…thanks for asking!

Remember 10 or 15 years ago when the digital imaging thingy was hotly debated and very new? I clearly recall telling my oldest daughter she couldn’t have a “camera phone” because I was sure they would be quickly outlawed. Copyright and plagiarism issues were the angst du’ jour.

Well, that didn’t happen. And now, I cannot imagine doing my job, any of them…without my smartphone. I use it more for photos than I use it for incoming/outgoing calls. It’s cheap. One micro SD card = a bazillion images stored. It’s immediate. The clarity of the photos is startling and WYSIWYG (blog-speak for “What You See Is What You Get) lets me know immediately whether or not the pic is good.

And this brings me to the digital scanners we dedicated family history hounds tow along in our purses and dity-bags. The amount of light these wonders of the modern age expose delicate pieces of documentation to is minimal. They are relatively safe and will not markedly degrade the object. With our memory cards, once again we can store a bazillion images inexpensively. We can then upload the images and SHARE with loved ones. Or use them to head up blog articles (guilty 🙂 )

Meanwhile, back to the real late 90’s and copyright infringement and book-snarfing via blatant acts of plagiarism like photographing each page for free ala a Boris and Natasha…

I went into our local climate controlled, nothing-allowed-in but a #2 pencil and a single sheet of standard notebook paper, air locked and hushed-if you-whispered image archive room. My mission for the day was to find a photo and perhaps some biographical info on my husband’s Granddad who was a big shot in banking. It was a really cool place with little self-serve lockers in the airlock where you could lock away all the stuff you weren’t allowed to bring in. That most certainly would include a camera–phone!

I dutifully used my #2 to request the file box that I wanted to see, and about 20 minutes later, was happily pawing through it elbow deep. Now, it seems the archive had been in possession of this box for about 20 some years. However, they had not gotten around to cataloging the specific contents. I had struck gold by devine intervention during a discerning round of eeny-meeny-miny-mo. I was only allowed one box at a time.

All the goodies were not delicately preserved in acid free sleeves– handled only with the long surgical steel tongs and white gloves I had imagined. Some warehouse guy heaved the box up the basement stairs and plopped the cardboard box on the austere table before me. “Dig in” he gruffly stated as he disappeared back through the “staff only” door to the stairwell.

After an hour or so, I found a couple of trade journal articles talking about BankerBilly with a press photo included. Elated, I filled out another form requesting a photo copy of these items. I forked over $2.25 (after being allowed to go back to my locker to bring back only my check book and driver’s license) and left. You see, there was about a two week turn around on photocopy requests. As guardians of the frail past, the archive had a strict standard for xeroxing anything. Each item was only allowed to be exposed to the copier “X” amount of times. After that, only a copy of a copy would be offered. The two week turn-around was necessary for the staff to research the number of times on record the same items had gone “through the light.” Respectable I thought, prudent of them.

In about 16 days, I had my copies in hand. Happiness.

Now let’s enter the digital age. How exciting. Everything is less adverse to the integrity of images, the work of a scanner is cheap, Memory cards and flash drives are rather universal to most scanners and results are immediate. Life is good.

Except. It’s expensive. Because there’s a ransom to be paid.

My local archive has done a real bang-up job in acquiring mounds of historic and familial documents. Still mostly uncatalogued, these items have been dropped at their feet by the bushel-full from institutions, families, and new owners of old homes with trunks full of goodies found in the attic. I would guess all of the donors felt like they were really doing a good deed. A public service–preserving history. Walking to the dumpster and giving this stuff the “heave-ho” isn’t illegal as far as I know. And although I would find such an act “unthinkable” it sure would be easier than driving the stuff downtown, dodging Hobos, and paying to park.

So several weeks ago, I went tootling down to the archive to order digital copies of several images I need for a book I’m working on. It’s a local history thing. It’s not going to hit the NYT top ten or rival John Grisham. Frankly, I am hoping for robust sales in order to break even on the hours of research etc. I brought new, clean, still in their packages sets of memory cards and a large flash drive. I purchased these thinking it would make the whole transaction less expensive ( I was looking for over 100 images) and one less step for the curating staff.

Imagine my shock to learn the “new” pricing structure.With the upgrade from copy machine to digital imaging, each image I wanted to take home would cost me $15. For that $15, I didn’t even get a lousy sheet of copier paper. Additionally, to publicly use any images in their holdings, a separate fee of $75 was imposed as a “use” fee. In short, those same images of Grandpa BankerBilly whose own last name was the property and birthright of my own children, would have cost me nearly $600 to walk out the door with that day! Back during the copy machine days, I was dinged for around $20 with postage.

Needless to say, I was stunned and a little more than just pissed off!

So before you haul a bunch of stuff to the mother-ship of your Historic Archives, I suggest doing a little bit of research first. What exactly is their policy for sharing and cataloging, and storage. Does it seem like they care? Is there another, smaller institution–even your local, small town library–who would like first dibs on this stuff?

Can it be deposited somewhere where it will be more than warehoused and shared at extortionist prices? Look for these places first. Please!

Bitter? Yes

Abhorred may be the more succinct description. How dare you hold my Grandpa-in-law hostage in a box in the basement on a warehouse shelf…unopened, ignored.

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Pets may not sound like a big deal when it comes to writing a good family history, but just try asking about an animal in a photo and see where the path unfurls!

Ponies, chickens, hound dogs, cats, and even prized hogs and rabid coons have all been a part of many of my stories. Sometimes just hearing the animal’s name and then asking where the inspiration came from opens a stream of new conversation. I recall Ellie, Mr Pooch, the triplets Red, White and Blue, Purp, Mable, Bunny, Chopper and Johnny to name a few. My Great Grandpa loved to talk about his best milk cow, Soupy, who he named after comedian Soupy Sales.

Take a look at the photo below, not exactly of a family pet, but viewing it and asking about it’s origin actually turned into a long chat about the whole family going to the Cincinnati Zoo one weekend. This then led into the stories told about the building of I-74 which you may now take to get to the zoo from Indianapolis!

Mom petting a lion cub at the Cincinnati Zoo c 1964

Sometimes an expression you have heard a million times will only make since once you can finally connect the dots.

My dad has always referred to the movie “Fatal Attraction” as the “Kill Chickens” movie.

Now, I thought he was just using some weird codeto indicate that it was time to change the channel if the grand kids were around and it happened to come on TV. But one day, I was listening to him tell a story about his grandfather during the war years when food and everyday items were under rationing restrictions.

Just keep “Fatal Attraction” = “Kill Chickens Movie” in mind

My dad had a pet Rooster (a chicken to city folks) named Elmer. He won him on a little traveling midway fair and square and had raised Elmer from chick-hood. One day when Little-Kid-Dad came home from school, Elmer was no where to be found. He found it odd that Elmer was not pecking around in his pen. That night, with his own Grandfather visiting from out of town as an honored guest, chicken and noodles were served for dinner!

Kill Chickens.

Glen Close.

Pet Bunny.

Boiling Pot.

Oh Dear Lord!

So ask around, if you dare, about the animals you see in the background of photos. Or learn a little something about how GG Grandpa raised his prize winning Blue Tick Hounds (cover your ears for the “runts” fate). Was there a famous comic cow in your family barn? We had a crawdad the size of a small lobster named Alfred…but he really smelled up my brother’s room. Somehow he escaped from his tank and was never seen again. Hmmm…

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This is my favorite photo of my “Pop” in the Army. He was stationed in Japan and couldn’t be home at Christmas with his family. In this picture, you see Grandpa holding up his Army photo. He is proudly including his son in the present opening and merriment of the day, even though he is half a world away.

Today’s post is what I call a “no-brainer.” Here in the US it’s Veteran’s Day. On the 11th day of the 11th month, at the 11th hour, it is our tradition to stop in our tracks, take a moment out of our daily lives and to use that moment giving thanks to the sacrifices of our protectors.

For better or for worse,we are the citizen army who serves the world. I am in awe of all those who step forward and say yes to this call. I admit to my own selfish Mom heart’s reaction to the events of 9/11. Growing up, I had older cousins and uncles and brother-in-laws to be who were serving in Vietnam. As a child I lived in constant fear of nuclear holocausts and mushroom clouds. But war as a state of living was not anything beyond a night terror.

It wasn’t real. It didn’t touch me.

When 9/11 happened, people from around the world were shocked and left reeling. Our parish held an emergency Mass to pray for peace the next day. It seems the spontaneous rainbow so many of us had seen the morning before wasn’t enough. It sprung from a rain-less sky, to assure us of providence, but we were so busy looking to our own patches of heaven for the next plane to drop, we didn’t notice.

At Mass on the morning of the 12th, I found myself bawling in public. Quite selfishly I will admit. All I could see before me were children who I loved, in grades K-8, and I knew from the depths of my sinking heart that the events we were living would cause many of them to say yes to the call to be soldiers, and sailors, warriors…people who were real, who I loved, who could be hurt or worse.

Today, I get it. Then, I didn’t.

I am still worried for the ones who have volunteered. But I know that their career is something they have no desire to say no to. They are truly called. They are made stronger by it, they are broken because of it, and they are completely remade too. Today’s world is not held captive by a violent threat shown in clips on the nightly news in black and white. It is all nearer than that. And somehow, I am less afraid knowing that so many of the children I have been a child with myself, the children who I room-mothered, the children of my family who grew up to be my ancestors all grew and still grow up to be so brave on my behalf.

It’s an admirable, amazing and incomprehensible thing that these people who I know and love step forward to do. They are not faceless characters in nighttime dreams, they are real, and my awe of them is real too.

Take a moment today to write about the Veterans in your life, your family, buried quietly alongside your relatives or perhaps lying unclaimed and lost into eternity on another land’s soil, or back at home in a world they could no-longer feel like they were a part of. Write their story, honor them as persons–not memories or dreams–and do, above all, thank a Vet today ❤

And so it continues…Son’s best friend proudly displaying his new ROTC duds at college.